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Mark Zuckerberg Apologizes For the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, Says He Isn't Opposed To Regulation (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Mark Zuckerberg apologized on Wednesday evening for his company's handling of the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal. "This was a major breach of trust and I'm really sorry this happened," he said in an interview on CNN. "Our responsibility now is to make sure this doesn't happen again." Zuckerberg's comments reflected the first time he apologized following an uproar over how Facebook allowed third-party developers to access user data. Earlier in the day, Zuckerberg wrote a Facebook post in which he said the company had made mistakes in its handling of the Cambridge Analytica data revelations. The company laid out a multipart plan designed to reduce the amount of data shared by users with outside developers, and said it would audit some developers who had access to large troves of data before earlier restrictions were implemented in 2014. Zuckerberg also told CNN that he is not totally opposed to regulation. "I'm not sure we shouldn't be regulated," he said. "There are things like ad transparency regulation that I would love to see."
Other highlights of Zuckerberg's interviews:
-He told multiple outlets that he would be willing to testify before Congress.
-He said the company would notify everyone whose data was improperly used.
-He told the New York Times that Facebook would double its security force this year, adding: "We'll have more than 20,000 people working on security and community operations by the end of the year, I think we have about 15,000 now."
-He told the Times that Facebook would investigate "thousands" of apps to determine whether they had abused their access to user data.
Regarding moderation, Zuckerberg told Recode: "[The] thing is like, 'Where's the line on hate speech?' I mean, who chose me to be the person that did that?" Zuckerberg said. "I guess I have to, because of where we are now, but I'd rather not."
Other highlights of Zuckerberg's interviews:
-He told multiple outlets that he would be willing to testify before Congress.
-He said the company would notify everyone whose data was improperly used.
-He told the New York Times that Facebook would double its security force this year, adding: "We'll have more than 20,000 people working on security and community operations by the end of the year, I think we have about 15,000 now."
-He told the Times that Facebook would investigate "thousands" of apps to determine whether they had abused their access to user data.
Regarding moderation, Zuckerberg told Recode: "[The] thing is like, 'Where's the line on hate speech?' I mean, who chose me to be the person that did that?" Zuckerberg said. "I guess I have to, because of where we are now, but I'd rather not."
He is lying. Which he is not good at. Same with little Cheryl.
Wonder what was in these boxes ?
https://twitter.com/bercbon4/status/976444112139366400
The Consvervative party in the UK used Cambridge Analalytica to help them during their election, is it a wonder it is taking so long to get a warrant ?
Sorry you found out about Facebook's business model.
A former media director for the Obama campaign said Facebook allowed them to access the personal data of its users in 2011 because the social media giant was “on our side.”
"Davidsen said she built a database of every American voter by using the same Facebook tool that Cambridge Analytica exploited to amass information on 50 million users."
https://nypost.com/2018/03/20/obamas-former-media-director-said-facebook-was-once-on-our-side/
Are we in that double standards place again with the liberal media - " do as we say not as we do" swamp?......
All animals are equal, some are more equal than others......
>' I mean, who chose me to be the person that did that?" Zuckerberg said. "I guess I have to, because of where we are now, but I'd rather not."
You did motherfucker!!
Take some damn responsibility for your actions. You think those billions were free? With great something, something something, something? How does that go again?
ffs.
In what universe doubling 15,000 gets you 20,000?
Now that thousands of apps have downloaded it, and each has backed it up to multiple locations, it should be simplicity itself to stuff that cat right back into its bag.
foreign election influence has been a mainstay of US foreign policy for sixty years. The same politicians without term limits who snored thorugh anti-communist proxy wars and endless US efforts to topple legitimate foreign governments are somehow entitled to have their musings on Facebook taken seriously? we wrote the book on this kind of chicanery and now its come home to roost.
The fact of life we deal with now under the cheeto in chief is that Hillary clinton was a turd of a candidate being rammed through primaries like some kind of unstoppable force. The email scandal, her involvement with the US governments sabotage of haitian minimum wage, and her untenable platform of lecturing blue collar workers on austerity while dressed in a five thousand dollar dress should easily have cost her delegates. Sanders was the stronger candidate who tackled issues like Wall Street,climate and Jobs, but delegates filed in lock step with Clinton because it was just "her time?" Give me a break.
Good people go to bed earlier.
From what I gather, Trump used the Cambridge data as an alternative to GOP data - in case his own party decided to shaft him. This was data bought without users consent.
Obama had a FB app that was optional and informed the users that it would gather data.
Just did a quick read here, no idea how accurate or biased the writeup may be.
TLDR; Trump bought data, Obama asked for it.
.
You are a CEO of a huge company, act like one.
... Zuck's not publicly opposed to regulation now. He knows he's been caught, has to "do" or "say" something. His advisors will assure him, sooner or later, Facebook staff, lobbying and lawyers will guide the regulatory apparatus to stifle new competition.
Fred fails to opt out of 'platform enable' which Facebook counts as permission to sell the data of his family friends and business colleges. FB lets all that data be used for 'research'.
Which is bollocks, Fred cannot give permission to hand over the data of people he knowns, and anyway Facebook turned this feature on by default, and Zuck knows the 'research' is really a catchall privacy excuse to sell data for any reason. Because rigging an election is "researching how to win".
In this case Aleksandr Kogan of Cambridge Analytica realized he could get all that data with a simple Facebook app, Cambridge Analyitca spent $800,000 on the app, funded in part by Russia, he goes an sells the data, over in St Petersberg as a great way to rig foreign elections, and the rest is history.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/20/technology/aleksandr-kogan-video-facebook-cambridge-analytica/index.html
Think of all that data in Facebook that's only supposed to be visible to a few people, actually slurped down, analysed, packaged up and handed to a Russian troll factory to be used against you. That's what FB is doing.
Zuck's crocodile tears are meaningless, they set out to obtain and sell that data, and its what they do.
Paypal too. Read their privacy policy. Any transaction you do on FB is up for sale to any government or business as data for 'research'.
Your ISP's too, they sell the billing details against your IP address and a timestamp. No limits on the sale.
I forgot to ad Obama's team did it all within America where went foreign companies
From my post on this last article:
I don't really feel like defending Obama because I disagree with a lot of what he did but explain to me this:
Did Obama's campaign hire foreign nationals to do the scraping? Remember, it's illegal to hire foreign nationals directly.
Did Obama's campaign break the TOS of facebook or any other data privacy laws?
Was Obama's campaign transparent in his methods? Because Cambridge Analyitica is secretive, uses shell companies and encrypted self deleting emails, and Nix is on tape saying he happily lies, uses honey pots and the like, and misdirects - did Obama engage in hiring people who use those methods?
Did obama's campaign use fake web logs, fake news articles, and other knowingly factually incorrect sources, in a highly targeted approach to misdirecting unsuspecting undecided voters?
You may consider it splitting hairs, I certainly don't approve of Obama's use of invasion of privicy for his social media campaign, but this looks like a case of comparing theft of a stack of free newspapers to a bank robbery.
this much attention and overall public scrutiny had been given to the Equifax and OPM breaches. Those were actually serious breaches impacting a ton of people if very real financial ways (~143M people for the Equifax, and most of the DoD Personal for the OPM). Those blew over quickly with no changes at all.
Versus information that people voluntary put up on FB and only seems to be an issue because targeted ads to support someone they don't like.
If I did that I would go to jail. Who's going to jail over this?
Too Much, Too Little, Too Late
Johnny Mathis and Denise Williams
1978
Guess it's over, call it a day
Sorry that it had to end this way
No reason to pretend
We knew it had to end some day, this way
Guess, it's over, the kicks are gone
What's the use of tryin' to hang on?
Somewhere we lost the key
So little left for you and me and it's clear to see
Too much, too little, too late to lie again with you
Too much, too little, too late to try again with you
We're in the middle of ending something that we do
It's all over
Oh, it was over
Too much, too little, too late to ever try again
Too much, too little, too late, let's end it being friends
Too much, too little, too late, we knew it had to end
And it's over
It's over
Guess it's over, the chips are down
Nearly all our bridges tumbled down
Whatever chance we try, let's face it, why deny
It's over
It's all over
It's over
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The value in Facebook is really the analytical data that Cambridge is claimed to have fondled.
Nothing surprising really considering that he Facebook board is mainly composed of ex-alphabet mafia people.
The whole thing is designed to get sheeple to post all of their juice details so that Facebook can sell trending data
This in itself must be interesting considering that most Facebook users also have multiple accounts
Zuckerberg: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuckerberg: Just ask.
Zuckerberg: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuckerberg: People just submitted it.
Zuckerberg: I don't know why.
Zuckerberg: They "trust me"
Zuckerberg: Dumb fucks
Don't be silly. "Having a meaningful conversation" here means he gets to set ("help shape") the rules.
Rules mean, to a large company, a couple extra warm bodies in the compliance department. Changing the rules means greasing the wheels, for which they have the means. For a small company those same rules might well mean that the whole thing becomes a non-starter. So rules keep the competition out. So of course he isn't opposed to rules. He's got the means to make them work for him.
Yes, there is very little barrier to entry for Facebook competitors. If anything the software and hardware are easier to set up today than they were 15 years ago. The only issue is getting your friends to try something new and younger people are doing that all the time so you could see attrition away from Facebook.
Having more regulations would raise the cost of compliance and give Facebook a way to stomp out competition either before it gets started or as it gets big enough to be slowed down by regulators and the cost of compliance.
How about Facebook stop performing psychological experiments on people for starters: https://www.theguardian.com/te...
Intentionally harming their users just to see if they can.
Of course he's OK with regulation.
It practically kills future competition because no one will be large enough (in the early days of a company) to "comply" with all the nonsense regulations of how to properly care for you damn cat videos and gossip.
I would love to create a company and then pull up the ladder when it got big enough. Who wouldn't.
If you down FB, get ready for the next social media company to be..... Chinese!
When you screech at them about privacy, the response will be...
"GFY round eye."
That's what it sounds like to me.
Facebook has been able to spend its way out of some competing social media trends (ie, buying Instagram) and somehow buck others they couldn't (Snapchat), but mostly they were negotiating from a position of strength due to their network effect.
Now that their actual business model is exposed -- "You tell me, I sell you" -- and they're facing real risks of large-scale disaffection or defection to other platforms, of course they're fans of regulation. Broad social media regulations to keep their existing competition in check and to keep out the next big thing which might turn them into MySpace.
TV comedians and news broadcasters and Hollywood actors like Obama.
TV comedians and news broadcasters and Hollywood actors love Trump.
TV comedians now receive their jokes via Twitter, instead from their writing staff.
Broadcast news is never dull and boring any more. There is always something bizarre and outrageous to report. And if there isn't, they can easily make up some fake news. There's so much of it now, that no one can really tell the difference any more between real and fake news.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I kinda got the same impression from OP, but perhaps there's something here ( never mind the delivery of the message ); the method of acquisition of the data is important, not necessarily the acquisition of the data itself, nor how said data was used?
Still seems somewhat hypocritical given how this is being portrayed by the media.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
He is in no way sorry about this or the data they have collected.
He is sorry they got caught.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
Yeah. Sure thing there genius.
And if I want to, say, hunt down who you are and hate-speech, ridicule, belittle and bully you into a public melt-down that's all right then?
Fantastic, because all of your private moments are now public and if I have the means and the motive I most certainly will have the opportunity.
Welcome to America 2.0. Freedom+$$$ vs Privacy+$$$. Let's see which one wins!
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
>Did Obama's campaign break the TOS of facebook or any other data privacy laws?
Absolutely.
>Was Obama's campaign transparent in his methods?
No. They broke Facebook's rules by sucking up the social graph, and Facebook let it happen because they were sympathetic.
Your other points don't strike me as particularly relevant. Political operatives are shady and undoubtedly all have dirt on their hands. Project Veritas managed to score similar conversations with the DNC. Yes, I know O'Keefe has a shady track record, but the video clips still exist.
Fake news... You do realize the whole reason this catch phrase was such an own goal by the left wing press was exactly because they have such a long record of spin and partisanship? The contemporary social justice movement, which both Obama and Clinton eagerly aligned themselves with, is built on highly targeted moral outrage, smearing people as sexist and racist. The James Damore case didn't happen in a vacuum. Ethics in journalism remains a question they refuse to face the facts on.
Finally, the foreign nationals charge strikes me as hollow since we're talking about the president under which international surveillance laundering became common practice, an act about which the people responsible lied about, with no repercussions.
If there was ever a time to stop splitting hairs and unite people who have all been shafted by the same issues on different sides, it would be now. Instead it's more left vs right mud slinging in the ever narrowing overton window.
Facebook is no different.
Any sort of regulation on Facebook's business model inarguably and by definition will favor Facebook over their smaller competitors.
"I'm not sure we shouldn't be regulated," he said. "There are things like ad transparency regulation that I would love to see."
Really? Then just go ahead and institute whatever it is you think the regulations would/should ultimately be. Not only would that significantly decrease the odds of the government stepping in and doing it for you, but we could all enjoy the supposed benefits of that regulation right now rather than years from now.
But that would mean you would own the decision (and its consequences) rather than being able to say "the government made me do it." And that would take some cajones that this last week has strongly suggested are MIA.
> it's illegal to hire foreign nationals directly
The wording on laws is "directly or indirectly" and it is not illegal to hire foreign nationals for various work; donation and contributions from is illegal, directly or indirectly.
If you have been checking with the news yes Obama did. The companies he hired contracted work out to foreign nationals.
Mark Zuckerberg has been doing a lot of apologizing lately and it all sounds very hollow, back-handed, and disingenuous. The best thing that one can do for themselves is to divorce themselves from Facebook altogether. Nothing good comes from having a Facebook account. Facebook encourages you to compare yourself to others and if you aren't as successful, handsome, or beautiful as they are then you psychologically feel really shitty. Furthermore, you are giving Facebook a treasure trove of information that it sells for huge profits. You've literally sold yourself to the devil. Honestly, Google, Yahoo, Bing, and their ilk aren't a whole lot better.
Yes, there is very little barrier to entry for Facebook competitors.
To the contrary, there is a tremendous barrier for entry. A social network's value to a user is dependent on how many people are already signed up. A network starting up-- with by definition zero users-- has no value; it will basically have to invest money to effectively pay people to join until it has enough users to attract other users.
The same is true for many systems-- dating services, for example.
It's a vastly unstable system-- little operations stay little, and big operations grow nearly in proportion to their bigness.
He told the New York Times that Facebook would double its security force this year, adding: "We'll have more than 20,000 people working on security and community operations by the end of the year, I think we have about 15,000 now."
If he's going to double the security force, he needs to go from 15,000 to 30,000. That's quite a bit over "more than 20,000".
(Yes, technically 30,000 counts as "more than 20,000"-- but if he meant 30,000, it would have been just as easy to simply say.)
What is hypocritical to me is the obama did it so it's ok. Seriously people, if you aren't comfortable with data being used this way agree both campaigns made you uncomfortable (even if in different ways) and change the system. Two wrongs don't make a free pass to justify it as right forever more.
He knows full well that--as a member of The Club--he'll be in a position to write his own "regulations." This is just his way of saying "Puhleeze don't throw me in that briar patch!"
I'm undecided how I feel about it, actually. I thought Obama's use was innovative, which would make Trump's use derivative. Effective though, so I can't fault either campaign in it's use.
Am I uncomfortable about privacy implications? No more so than I am about this life-leash we all carry around in our pockets that knows virtually everything about us.
What I know I don't like is how everyone is making a big deal about Trump being a horrible person for doing what Obama did 4 years earlier and being celebrated for.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
... because it's a goddam membership naivete problem.
Facebook could spend more time/money educating its membership regarding the difference between bullshit and wild honey.
Most people have grown up with the Internet and it's incorrect to suggest that they are duped.
We don't fall for propaganda -- we embrace it and love it and feed it -- and we amplify whatever fits our world view.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
It's called the network effect.
Sort of like when Leonardo DaVinci invented the telephone.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Obama had a FB app that was optional and informed the users that it would gather data...Trump bought data, Obama asked for it.
So what you're saying is that in addition to investigating Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, Congress should also investigate all the Obama supporters that agreed to provide their friends lists? That's what we're after, right? Parties that give up other people's data without their consent?
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
> Remember, it's illegal to hire foreign nationals directly.
Remember: Christopher Steele is a foreign national.
Extra sour that they have thousands of moderators and all kinds of algorithms to detect and remove female nipples and other human body parts the poor Facebook citizens can't bear to see according to to "community-rules", but of course threatening, bullying and dehumanizing other people is much preferred over seeing what a human being actually looks like.
Anyone else detect a slight whiff of vodka?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Of course he wants regulation. Regulation will make it much harder for potential competitors to get started, helping Facebook maintain its market dominant position.
Oh great, so further merging with the feds? It keeps getting better.